Taiyuan massacre

{{Short description|1900 mass killing of Christians and missionaries in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China}}

{{Infobox civilian attack

| title = Taiyuan massacre

| image = Taiyuan massacre Account of massacre at the time.jpg

| caption = account at the time

| partof = Boxer Rebellion

| location = Taiyuan, Shanxi province, North China

| target = Foreigners, Christians

| date = July 9, 1900

| type = Massacre

| fatalities = 45 Christian men, women and children

| victims = Christians

| perpetrators = Disputed

}}

The Taiyuan massacre took place during the Boxer Rebellion, July 9, 1900, in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, North China. Sources recall that they were killed in the presence of Yuxian, governor of Shanxi. 44 people were killed.

Before the 1900 massacre

By the late 19th century, there were long-established Christian communities. Catholic missionaries first came to Shanxi in 1633, and Protestant churches were established in 1865.{{sfnb|Clark|2013|p=98-99}}

The massacre

Protestant and Catholic missionaries and their Chinese parishioners were massacred throughout northern China, some by Boxers and others by government troops and authorities. After the declaration of war on Western powers in June 1900, Yuxian, who had been named governor in March, implemented a brutal anti-foreign and anti-Christian policy. On 9 July, reports circulated that he had executed forty-four foreigners from missionary families whom he had invited to the provincial capital Taiyuan under the promise to protect them.{{sfnb|Esherick|1987|p=190-191}}{{sfnb|Cohen|1997|p=51}} By the summer's end, more foreigners and as many as 2,000 Chinese Christians had been put to death in the province. Journalist and historical writer Nat Brandt called the massacre of Christians in Shanxi "the greatest single tragedy in the history of Christian evangelicalism."{{sfnp|Brandt|1994|p= [https://archive.org/details/massacreinshansi00bran xiii]}}

The two most prominent murdered Catholics were Italian bishops Gregory Grassi (born 1833) and Francis Fogolla (born 1839), both of whom were canonised Saints by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000. Their companions of martyrdom were three other Franciscan friars, seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, 11 Chinese members of the Third Order of St. Francis — of whom six were seminarians — and three Chinese employees of the Franciscan mission of Taiyuan in the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Shansi.https://web.archive.org/web/20090511174637/https://www.bmsworldmission.org/standard.aspx?id=11242 bmsworldmission.org

Dispute

An essay by Roger Thompson suggested that mob violence was responsible for the massacre, rather than Yuxian, on the basis that the most widely circulated accounts were by people who could not have seen the events and that these accounts appeared to follow earlier martyr literature.{{sfnb|Thompson|2007|p=65-92}} However, another study found that the various accounts from the time appeared to agree on the otherwise skeletal narrative.{{sfnb|Clark|2013|p=98-99}} In any case, this event became a notorious symbol of Chinese anger.{{sfnb|Thompson|2007|p= 65-92}}

Legacy

The Shansi Imperial University at Taiyuan was founded in 1901 with funds from the indemnity levied against Shansi for the massacre of the Christians by the Boxers.[https://books.google.com/books?id=GWOe7pFmVZsC&pg=PA110 "The Study of Change: Chemistry in China, 1840-1949"], by James Reardon-Anderson, published 2003, {{ISBN|0-521-53325-2}} During the first decade of the university its chancellor was the Baptist missionary Timothy Richard who also headed the Western College.

The Catholics murdered in the massacre were subsequently canonized by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000 as part of the 120 Martyrs of China.

References and further reading

{{cite book|last = Brandt|first = Nat|year = 1994|title = Massacre in Shansi|publisher = Syracuse University Press|location = Syracuse, N.Y.|isbn = 0815602820|url = https://archive.org/details/massacreinshansi00bran}}
{{citation | first= Anthony E.| last =Clark | chapter =Mandarins and Martyrs of Taiyuan, Shanxi, in Late Imperial China| pages =93–116| title =A Voluntary Exile: Chinese Christianity and Cultural Confluence since 1552 | editor-last =Clark, Anthony E. | publisher =Rowman & Littlefield | year =2013 | isbn =9781611461480|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0_ZNAgAAQBAJ&q=Yuxian}}
{{cite book |last1 = Clements|first1 = Ronald |last2 = Bell|first2 = Prudence|year = 2014 |title = Lives from a Black Tin Box |publisher = Authentic Media| location = Milton Keynes |isbn = 978-1860249310}}
{{cite book |last = Cohen|first = Paul A. |year = 1997 |title = History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth |url = https://archive.org/details/historyinthreeke00paul|url-access = registration|publisher = Columbia University Press| location = New York |isbn = 0231106505}}
{{cite book|last = Esherick|first = Joseph|year = 1987|title = The Origins of the Boxer Uprising|publisher = University of California Press|location = Berkeley|url = https://archive.org/details/originsofboxerup00jose|isbn = 0520058283}}
{{citation | first=Roger R | last =Thompson| chapter =Reporting the Taiyuan Massacre: culture and politics in the China war of 1900| pages =65–92| title =The Boxers, China, and the World |editor1=Tiedemann, R. G. |editor2=Robert A. Bickers | location = Lanham, MD| publisher =Rowman & Littlefield | year =2007 }}

;Accounts from the time

{{cite book |title=Martyred Missionaries Of The China Inland Mission: With A Record Of The Perils & Sufferings Of Some Who Escaped |editor-last=Broomhall |editor-first=Marshall |year=1900 |publisher=Morgan & Scott |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/lastlettersfurth00unknuoft |access-date=2009-08-02}}
{{cite book|author=E. H. Edwards|title=Fire and Sword in Shansi: The Story of the Martyrdom of Foreigners and Chinese Christians|url=https://archive.org/details/FireAndSwordInShansi|year=1903|publisher=Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier}}
Arnold Henry Savage Landor, [https://books.google.com/books?id=N88NAAAAIAAJ China and the Allies] (New York: Scribner's, 1901). 01008198 Google Books: